Friday, May 21, 2010

What are you talking about?

Both of my kids have been late talkers. They understand everything that I say for quite awhile, but keep their own opinions bottled up. Who knows why. I worried and worried about Porter and his lack of speech, and then all of a sudden he just started talking. And now, of course, I am begging him to Please Stop.Anyway, Molly has given us a few bones, a few instances of mama or papa or Porter or hot. But if you ask her to say something? Not a chance. She purses her lips together and acts like she is really interested in a speck on the floor. Whatever. It drives Bryce crazy. But over the past few days, she finally has a word that she will repeat and use in the right context. Baby.She will say it after you. She will point at a doll or an actual baby and say it. Or even sometimes point at herself and say it. Clearly a word.I remember what Porter's first word like that was too.Car.This sort of makes me wonder. I wonder how much is just innate gender differences and how much I play into it. I certainly never bought Porter a doll or a baby stroller. I never told him he was pretty. I do those things with Molly without even really thinking about it. Now, Porter definitely showed an interest in cars way before he ever even owned a toy one, and Molly definitely notices babies and dolls and really just people more than Porter ever did. But still. I've seen Porter play with the stroller recently (even if he is driving dinosaurs around in it), and I feel bad that I never even gave him that option. I suppose these things are going to happen almost no matter what I do. But I don't want either of my kids to feel like certain toys or colors or ideas are off limits to them. So. Baby. And car. I'd like to think my kids are more complicated than that. But it does make birthday shopping easier.I'm Cooking: Tandoori Chicken with Zucchini, Jasmine Rice, Yogurt and Cucumber Sauce. I love this marinade for chicken and lamb. I added the sliced zucchini in for the last 30 minutes of marinating and cooked them with the chicken. It is best grilled, but I also chop chicken breasts and cook them on a baking sheet in a very hot oven and it's almost as good. For the yogurt sauce, I mix about a cup of plain yogurt with finely diced cucumber, garlic and a little bit of salt. It cuts the spice of the chicken, especially for kids. Molly seems to not mind spice at all, but Porter is not much of a fan.

3 comments:

I wonder how much of my kids' preferences have been forced upon them as well. I did go through a phase of indulging Mighty when he begged to have his nails painted all the time. Aside from that, it's been cars and legos for the boys and kitchens and babies for the girl. I guess we try to cultivate them in our images to a certain extent and I don't think there's a whole lot wrong with that. We follow their passions and when something doesn't float their boat, we switch gears. You're an awesome mama.

I do it both ways. It's totally better grilled, more like actual Tandoori chicken. But if you set your oven to 500 and watch to see that it doesn't burn, it's pretty good too (and easier). Sometimes I just end up with liquid pooling up on the baking sheet, which is annoying but not the end of the world.